Keane not fazed by club’s lack of activity

Dan Black

Burnley’s only January capture Michael Keane claims he wasn’t disheartened by the club’s lack of activity in the transfer window.

The 22-year-old made his loan move from Old Trafford permanent at the start of the year and has featured 13 times in the Premier League for Sean Dyche’s side.

The club were thwarted in their attempts to bolster the squad further when attempts to sign Dundee United’s Stuart Armstrong, West Brom’s Graham Dorrans, Nottingham Forest’s Henri Lansbury and West Ham’s Matt Jarvis were knocked back.

Rivals Leicester City added Robert Huth and £9m striker Andrej Kramaric in the window, Hull City sealed the £3m capture of Dame N’Doye, Aston Villa paid £3.2 for Carles Gil and added Scott Sinclair on loan while Tony Pulis signed Callum McManaman and Darren Fletcher.

But the England Under 21 international has backed his team-mates: “I think we’ve got a good squad of players and you can see that the manager consistently picks the same team.

“The players that come on always do a good job. People always comment on us having a small squad but all the players are capable of playing at this level. We didn’t add to it but I wasn’t disheartened at all.”

The former Manchester United trainee was, however, disappointed with the weekend reversal at the hands of Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.

Gus Poyet’s latest signing Jermain Defoe took the game away from the Clarets when adding to Connor Wickham’s opener. It was the one-time Spurs striker’s 125th Premier League goal of his career.

“He’s a good player but I don’t think he’s any better than what we’ve got to be honest,” said Keane. “That’s no excuse. We came in to the game believing we could get a result, but on the day we didn’t perform.

“We’re really disappointed. We went in to the game quite confident, thinking we could get a result. We started the game quite well but when they got their first goal we never really responded as we would’ve liked to.

“We had a few half chances but we didn’t really create anything clear cut. When that happens in this league it becomes difficult. They only had a few chances but they’ve taken them. We didn’t create good chances like we have been doing recently.”

That result on Wearside, coupled with the surrender of a two-goal lead at home to Crystal Palace, now places more importance on Sunday’s clash with the Baggies.

Successive defeats for the Foxes, QPR, Steve Bruce’s Tigers and Villa have helped Burnley’s cause, but Keane insists that they can’t keep relying on results elsewhere.

“It’s vital,” Keane said. “The manager has said already that we need to put it behind us. It’s a huge game at weekend and ideally we need to get the three points.

“It is a big one but we’re not scared of playing any game. We’ve shown that we can get points against the bigger teams up to now. We’ll take it one game at a time and see what we can do in each one.

“The fans can play a big part. We’ll be looking for our fans to do that at the weekend. We need them to get right behind us and hopefully we can give them something to cheer about.”

He added: “You keep an eye out for results but you’ve got to look after yourself first and foremost.

“Things have gone our way but we’re still disappointed we haven’t won because it’s a missed opportunity like a couple of weeks ago against Crystal Palace.

“Obviously you keep an eye on them. We’ve got lucky the last few weeks but we can’t keep relying on them.”